New book Tony Albert: Not a Souvenir celebrates an artist, curator and cultural leader whose work reshapes how we see Aboriginal identity, urging a more honest and hopeful vision of Australia's past and future.
Tony Albert's art "reclaims and reframes the imagery of Aboriginal Australia with wit, beauty and force", says publisher Thames & Hudson.
Albert, a Girramay, Yidinji and Kuku-Yalanji man, has been hailed as "one of Australia's great living artists" by Suzanne Cotter, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.
Across painting, photography, sculpture and installation, Albert's practice explores Aboriginal culture, identity and history through a deeply personal lens. Drawing on individual and collective pasts, he transforms the visual language of colonisation - turning objects of prejudice into symbols of resistance, resilience and pride.
Tony Albert: Not a Souvenir - set for release in May - is the most comprehensive publication on the artist to date, tracing his journey as one of Australia's most incisive contemporary voices. Across themes of past, present and future, the book unpacks the many critical questions raised in Albert's work: how do we remember, give justice to and rewrite complex and traumatic histories?
Edited by Liz Nowell, with essays by leading curators and writers and designed with bold, graphic flair, the volume illuminates an extraordinary creative practice and affirms Albert as a vital force in Australia's ongoing story of truth-telling and cultural renewal. Nowell is Executive Director of Arts Project Australia, an organisation that supports neurodivergent artists and advocates for their inclusion in the visual arts sector. Previously, she led the Institute of Modern Art, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental, and the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia.
Albert is the inaugural Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain First Nations Curatorial Fellow and the first Indigenous Trustee for the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 2023 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Griffith University for his significant contribution to the arts.
He is one of Australia's foremost contemporary artists with a longstanding interest in the cultural misrepresentation of Aboriginal people. Drawing on both personal and collective histories, his multidisciplinary practice considers the ways in which optimism might be utilised to overcome adversity.
Tony Albert: Not a Souvenir will show at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia from the 21st of May and launches in conjunction with Tony Albert's first monograph, Tony Albert: Not a Souvenir edited by Liz Nowell, published by Thames & Hudson Australia, RRP $100.00.
More information about the MCA exhibition is available online.
